


I'm Gonna Put A Spell On You

by xX_just_4n0th3r_r3j3ct_Xx



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Coffee Shops, Frerard, High School, Inspired by Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, LGBT characters, M/M, Magic, Magic High School, Mutual Pining, Pining, Punk Frank Iero, Revenge Era Gerard Way, Slow Burn, Warlocks, but he's also a sweetheart, coffee shop AU, everyone is gay basically, gerard is a witch, high school bullies - Freeform, lots of gay, maybe some petekey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29379237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xX_just_4n0th3r_r3j3ct_Xx/pseuds/xX_just_4n0th3r_r3j3ct_Xx
Summary: Gerard was a witch – well, the official term was ‘warlock’, but he’d taken a liking to the former. He had effortlessly been top of his class for the last few years at the New Jersey Academy of Magic, and now, in his senior year, he was already one of the most prominent, skilled witches of the entire country. Professors of Academies all the way over in California knew his name, spoke of how smart he was, how great a witch he would become - after all, he was essentially a prodigy. Perhaps someone capable of more than any witch or warlock in history could ever have dreamed of.“Gerard Way,” they’d say, “the greatest witch of our time.”He also worked in a coffee shop.
Relationships: Frank Iero & Gerard Way, Frank Iero & Mikey Way, Frank Iero/Gerard Way, Gerard Way & Mikey Way, Gerard Way & Original Female Character(s), Mikey Way/Pete Wentz, Ray Toro & Gerard Way
Kudos: 5





	I'm Gonna Put A Spell On You

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea what i'm doing. so yeah let's go :]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wednesday, May 26, 2004

“Gerard Way,” Mikey said, “the greatest idiot of our time. You wanna meet guys to date dressed like _that?”_

Gerard frowned at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, scanning over his outfit through the spots of dried toothpaste that covered the glass. “What’s wrong with this?”

Gerard watched reflection-Mikey step forward next to him and make a _“hmph”_ sound, folding his arms. “Well, one, that hoodie has green stripes and your shirt is like, bright red. You look like the kids at the mall who dress up as Santa’s Little Elves.”

“Wow, thanks.”

“Hey, you’re the one who asked. And two, your hair is greasy as fuck. _And,_ before you say anything,” he added as Gerard opened his mouth, “I know you don’t have time to wash it right now. So just wear a hat.”

Gerard’s eyebrows furrowed a little more and he patted his teal roots affectionately. Mikey rolled his eyes at his brother’s attachment to his hair. What he didn’t think he’d ever fully understand was why on _Earth,_ if Gerard genuinely cared about his hair (which he very much did), he would make the decision to cover the roots in kitchen bleach at three o’clock in the morning, instead of getting it professionally done like everyone else who didn’t want it to fall out like when cats shed fur in the summer. Or why he didn’t just use a colour-changing spell. But no, because according to Gerard, it was _‘more authentic’_ this way. Mikey thought that was bullshit.

“I don’t have a hat.” Gerard said. “Except that bobble hat monstrosity mom knitted out of yellow and purple yarn a couple years back.”

“Absolutely fucking not. You can wear mine, then, but I expect you to wash the grease out of it after, okay?” He pulled his beloved grey beanie off before he could get a response, clumsily draping it over Gerard’s head and placing a hand on his shoulder. Gerard’s overgrown black hair stuck out the bottom of the hat all the way round, curling up at the ends. “Please don’t murder it.”

“It’s a hat, Mikes.”

“Great observation skills, Gee.”

“Shut up,” Gerard laughed. “Don’t you quote Benedict Cumberbatch on me. That’s Ava’s job, she’s the one who loves him more than she loves her boyfriend.”

“I’m going to tell her you said that.”

“Fuck, you better not.”

“I will, and she’ll murder you.”

Gerard paused.

“If I’m going down, the hat’s going down with me.”

“You wouldn’t _dare_ ,” Mikey said, gasping, and squinted at Gerard through his glasses, and Gerard squinted back until Mikey finally gave in and blinked. “Fine,” he sighed, “I won’t tell her.”

“Thank you.”

“But I _will_ do this.”

And then, in one quick, coordinated set of movements, the faucet was on full-blast and water was shooting out of the sink and drenching the entire front half of Gerard’s shirt. When he looked up, Mikey was a few steps back, completely dry with the exception of a few water splatters on one sleeve.

“You dickhead!” Gerard shouted, scrambling to turn the faucet off and getting ten times more covered in sink water in the process.

“Oops.” Gerard could hear the pure evil underneath the innocent tone in Mikey’s voice and he could _see_ the glint of pride in his eye, and although he knew he ought to be used to his younger brother’s antics after living with him for fifteen years, it still drove him mad just like it did when they were children. At least back then, back when Mikey was only three or four years old, Gerard could honestly say the words _‘I have better fashion sense than my brother,_ ’ because it was true, even if that may not have been the case now. He sighed and wiped his hands on his jeans.

“You’re fucking annoying, Mikey Way. You know that, right?”

Mikey ignored him.

“Now you have no choice but to change your elf shirt.” Gerard started to move towards the doorway to his room but was stopped by a hand on his arm, and he turned his head to face Mikey without moving his feet or the rest of his body. _Huh,_ he thought distractedly for a second, _he’s almost taller than me now._ He raised his eyebrows.

“What?”

Mikey laughed. “Uh, no offence, Gee, but for someone so good at art, you’re shit at matching colours. Like, really, _really_ bad. It’s abysmal. Hopeless. Awful-”

Gerard was starting to miss those days when Mikey couldn’t talk yet.

“Remind me what the purpose of this comment is?”

“Right. Stick to black. You’ll look emo, but in a good way. I guarantee you there will be someone out there who’ll think you look…rad.”

Gerard looked sceptical. “I am one-hundred percent sure that never in my _entire life_ have I ever heard you use the word ‘rad’.”

“Maybe I just picked it up from people at school. I don’t know.” Mikey certainly wasn’t one-hundred percent sure on whether Gerard believed him or not, but he didn’t have the time or the patience to stand there and argue.

_“Hmph.”_

“Now go on, shoo, little elf, go channel your inner Wednesday Addams,” Mikey said, and Gerard flipped him off as he hurried to his bedroom.

*

Gerard paused on the sidewalk outside the coffee shop, crushing the butt of his cigarette under the toe of his converse. That in itself was a risky move, as the white rubber was beginning to detach itself from the rest of the shoe and the smoking paper was getting dangerously close to the red stripe on the end of his sock, but of course, Gerard, being Gerard, refused to buy new shoes until his current ones had had the life drained out of them until they physically could not hold themselves together any longer. He was in the process of considering whether he should even show up to work today at all when his thoughts were interrupted by none other than the voice of Mr. Raymond Toro, fellow coffee-shop employee. Oh, and he also happened to be Gerard’s only friend at the New Jersey Academy of Magic. Gerard smiled shyly, as he was still in public and doing anything that could attract attention from people he didn’t know certainly was not his strong suit (at least not in the Mortal world), and Ray patted him on the back in recognition of his efforts, opening the door and saying something as they walked in that Gerard couldn’t hear over the sound of the bells above the doorframe. Ray looked at his phone as they headed for the aprons hanging on the wall and his eyebrows raised almost halfway to his hairline.

“Gerard, you know our shift started exactly twenty-two minutes ago, right?”

Gerard sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Shit.”

Ray looked at him. “Shit,” he agreed.

He handed a long green apron to Gerard, who tied it around the back of his neck before fumbling through the drawer in the front desk for his and Ray’s name tags. He gave one to Ray and as he was pinning it onto his apron, Gerard said, “Is there an excuse we can use so Brian doesn’t fire us for being late, like, five times this month?”

Ray didn’t get an opportunity to answer because someone else stepped in and replied, “Just tell him your dad got hit by a car.”

Gerard choked on the swig of water he’d just tried to take from his water bottle, coughing into his sleeve (which, thank the Lord, was such a dark colour that the mixture of saliva and water didn’t show up on it – he’d have to thank Mikey for that later) before looking up and immediately recognising the person as another colleague.

“Ava, what the _fuck?”_ He said, starting to laugh. “I’m not gonna say that!”

“Why not?”

“Because!” Gerard couldn’t actually think of a reason not to say it on the spot, but he strongly suspected there were more than a few out there somewhere in the depths of his mind, so he settled for making that facial expression no one really knows the name for but everybody makes, where you furrow your eyebrows and widen your eyes at the same time and the other person seems to understand your feelings towards whatever’s happening. Ava seemed to understand his feelings towards what was happening.

“Eh, alright then, _don’t_ say it. But I don’t suppose you’ve got any other suggestions?” She tapped her foot against the tiled floor and grinned, and Ray decided he wanted to re-join the conversation.

“What if we go with something a little less, y’know, tragic?” He said, and Gerard nodded, using his other sleeve to dry his face. “Like-”

“Toro! Way!”

Ava laughed discreetly and whispered a _“good luck,”_ and then she was all the way over on the other side of the room, taking an order from a customer sat at the bar-like table that stretched across the wall next to the window. Gerard liked that table. It had the best view, where you could sit for hours and hours on end and watch the scenes in the streets outside. He’d spent more time than he’d like to admit perched on one of those stools with a sketchbook and stick of charcoal in hand, peacefully sketching the busy people hurrying through the street and tapping his other hand to the beat of whatever Bowie song was playing through his headphones in that moment. He couldn’t help it, really – there was just something about watching people arrive and depart so quickly, so effortlessly, one second they’re there in front of you and there’s a million explanations to contemplate as to how they got there but then just as suddenly they’re gone, out of sight, and those million explanations don’t matter anymore as the person disappears from both your view and your memory. It drew him in like a moth to a flame, and he was fascinated by it.

“Gerard, are you there? _Hello?”_ Gerard was pulled, begrudgingly, out of his thoughts, and waved away Brian’s fucking irritating hand that was flapping in front of his face. “Did you even listen to me?”

“Uh–” Gerard stuttered and shrank back into his hoodie like a turtle. “I – no, no I’m sorry, I was distracted,” he mumbled. Brian, pinching the bridge of his nose, let out a sigh that sounded an awful lot like a growl, and Gerard took a step back without noticing.

“I _said,_ you better have a fucking good reason for showing up so late, again.”

He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Actually, Boss, it’s my dad. Yeah, my dad, he…he got in a car accident…” Gerard trailed off, looking down at his broken sneakers as if he were about to break down into tears of utterly heartbroken despair. In reality, he was deliberately not blinking so that his eyes were watering when he looked up again, and Brian’s tough demeanour instantly dropped.

“Oh my God, Gerard, I’m so sorry,” he said, completely forgetting that Ray, too, was late for work. "Is there anything I can do? Do you want a free drink? Or...I don't know." Brian paused and his mouth opened to say more but he seemed to decide against it, instead offering Gerard a hesitant, awkward pat on the arm before turning and walking unusually quickly into his office and closing the door behind him. Ray burst out laughing and ended up having to place one hand on the countertop to keep his balance.

“Dude – that – shit, that was amazing.”

Gerard took a bow. “Thank you, kind Sir.”

*

It really was, truthfully, a usual day for Gerard. Same place, same routine, same schedule, same drinks, same customers - and although he did his best to shut the nagging voice in his head somewhere behind a door to block it out, the words still came through to the front of his mind every now and again whenever the shop got too quiet. Muffled words, sure, but still understandably shouting at him to quit this mortal job and focus his energies on his witch studies. He hated those moments. The ones where he was left alone for too long with his thoughts - thoughts were like cooking a beef stew, as he once so eloquently described to Mikey, leave them for the right amount of time and they'll be warm and delicious and overall pleasant to encounter, but leave them alone stewing for too long and they'll go mushy and dry and leave you either choking or wanting to spit them out. Most likely both. This was one of those moments. The voice had walked through the door Gerard had shut it behind and was telling him to _do something that actually matters,_ _unlike this pitiful world of idiots who don't even believe in the existence of magic._ _Stupid,_ the voice said, _they're all stupid with their false Gods, and their holy churches, and their hatred for the idea of us witches that they tell each other are fake, just to spare the fragments of sanity they've managed to hold on to. They should all do us a favour and-_

"Gerard?"

"Hm?" Gerard shook his head. "Sorry, did you say something?"

Ray shot him a suspicious look before answering. "Yeah, I gotta go help the delivery guys out back. See you in, like, five minutes."

“’Kay.”

Gerard looked up when he heard the tell-tale sound of the bells on the door, and for a moment longer than it should have, his gaze fixed itself on the tall blond boy with the baseball jacket who’d just walked inside. He was sure he recognised this boy somehow, and was on the verge of something clicking into place in his head when the boy caught him staring, and instantly Gerard remembered who he was – the asshole jock at Mikey’s mortal highschool who’d given Mikey a black eye last year, and Gerard, even after cursing him with temporary bowel problems, was definitely still not over it. Not that he'd waste any more time on it.

Unfortunately for him, though, the boy was now on his way over with the clear intention of starting a fight.

“What are _you_ staring at, freak?”

Gerard wasn’t going to indulge in such petty interactions. No, of course not, he’s a famous _witch_ , for fuck’s sake, so he’s just going to get on with his job as a barista at Brian’s Coffee House and ask this _lovely_ customer what he would like.

“Welcome to Brian’s motherfucking Coffee House, what can I get for you today?” Gerard said through gritted teeth. _Oops_ , he thought. _That came out a bit aggressive_.

“Dude, what’s your problem? Stop lookin’ at me like that!” The boy reached over the counter to jab a finger against Gerard’s chest _. Don’t react, Gerard, that’s what he wants._

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you not to make any physical contact with employees. Unfortunately, it’s not the 70’s, and we no longer reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, but we can in fact expel you from the premises if you continue this behaviour.” Gerard said calmly. “Now, what can I get for you today?”

“What are you, my _mom?_ Piss off, freakshow, you’re fucking shit at your job.”

_It’s okay, you got this, just be professional, ask him what he wants again, and make him the order._

“That’s not what your mom said to me when I was banging her last night.”

_Stupid, Gerard, you're fucking stupid._

And then there was a fist in Gerard’s face.

It wasn’t like he had meant to say it. He wasn't even the sort of person to say shit like that. His original plan was to serve the customer and maybe spit in his drink or something, not to rise to the bait and get his nose punched hard enough that two thick streams of blood were now streaming out of both nostrils. But who could blame him? This jock kid had, after all, hit Mikey last year, and Gerard wasn’t going to let something like that go. Despite this, he would most definitely have preferred if his nose wasn’t bleeding like a character from one of the many anime shows he watched. Gerard managed to look up through the gaps between his fingers that he'd brought up to cradle his nose, and somehow managed to intensify the wince on his face. There were people watching him now and it made Gerard sick, it forced twists and knots into his stomach that made him want to squirm and cry and throw up all at the same time, but Ray and Ava were nowhere to be seen and it didn’t seem like anyone was planning on coming to his rescue any time soon, so he bit back the tears and the vomit and the urge to writhe around and instead glared defiantly into the boy’s watery blue eyes. The damage had already been done; he might as well fight a little longer, until his sudden burst of confidence finally drained out of him.

“So, nosebleed,” he said, and yanked Gerard’s hands away from his face so his arm wasn’t blocking his name tag. He squinted at the pin. _“Jared Way_. You’re a Way? Let me guess, you’re that little twink’s brother, right? Mickey, is it? Tell him I said hi.”

“It’s _Gerard_. And his name is Mikey, not Mickey. And I’m also going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I’m going to have to ask you to shut the fuck up, _Gerard._ ” He snatched the glass of iced coffee from the gloved hand of a lady walking past, and she scowled at him, but walked away. Gerard made a mental note of what she looked like so he could cast a spell later to give her good luck or something. Or maybe just a coupon. “I came in here for a drink, so I’m gonna get a drink, see.”

Gerard caved a little sooner than he'd hoped.

“Alright, dude, fine. Is that what you wanted?” He gestured meekly to the iced coffee and the boy laughed at him, and all of a sudden Gerard was uncomfortably aware of the height difference between himself and the boy, and Gerard was intimidated.

“No, it’s not. Here, take it back.” Before Gerard could reach out a blood-covered hand, the freezing cold liquid was all over his face, and he couldn’t help it, he shouted for Ray when he felt one of the ice cubes scratch his cheek.

“Silly me,” the boy said. “My hand must have slipped.”

It was in this moment that Ray returned, stopping at the doorway to take in the scene, and Gerard could see his face go through about fifteen different expressions before it settled on one that made him look as if someone had just run over his dog and laughed as they drove away. Without saying a word, he walked over and grabbed the boy by the collar of his baseball jacket, and practically dragged him across the room to the open front door before throwing him outside. As Ray walked back to the counter someone at a table in the corner of the shop clapped and whistled, and despite being a total mess, Gerard laughed.

Ray scooped up at least twenty serviettes and replaced Gerard's hand with them to catch the blood and soak up the coffee. "Gee, I'm gonna take you to the staff toilets, okay? People are staring."

Gerard nodded and let himself be steered in what he assumed was the direction of the toilets. It didn't take Ray too long to clean up his face, after the fiasco that was finding a way for Gerard to sit down without falling over (he'd ended up sitting up on the sink counter and drumming his fingers on the ceramic) - and once they were past the stage of him complaining about the never-ending supply of tissues being shoved into his face, Gerard realised it wasn't actually that unpleasant to have someone else take care of you. Even if that meant having to get punched in the nose by an asshole 17-year-old. When the last few blood-stained tissues had been tossed into the trash, Ray looked Gerard in the eye sincerely.

"What happened?"

Ah yes, the inevitable question.

"Remember the kid who hit Mikey last year?" Ray's hair bounced as he nodded. "That was him. He was getting all pissy at me for no reason and said I was shit at my job, so I told him that's not what his mom said to me last night, and then he punched me in the face. So. Yeah."

"You told him _what?"_

"What?"

"Dude." Ray was doing an awful job at hiding his amusement, and so Gerard pointed it out. "Shush. I'm just saying, you can't expect people like him to _not_ react like that when you tell them you fucked their mom."

Gerard grinned. "I should have told him I fucked his dad, too."

"That's not what I meant!"

"I know. But I'm sorry for dragging you into this shit. He probably has you on his blacklist now, too."

This time, Ray didn't try to stifle his laugh. "Are you kidding? You should have seen his face when I threw him out! He looked like I'd just murdered his mom, let alone banged her. Let's hope I scared him away from you, too." He put on a fake-posh voice to imitate professors at the Academy. "Can't have a _witching prodigy_ being beaten by a _mortal teenager,_ can we?"

Gerard snorted. "Fuck off. I hate you."

"You love me really."

"I do. Thanks, dude."

*

Between the punching incident and being under the impression his employee's father had been struck by a car that morning, Brian had decided to let Gerard have the rest of the day off work. Gerard was now looking for his broken flip phone in the drawer behind the counter, and right as he wrapped his fingers around it, someone tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped, both losing grip on the phone and whacking his hand on the top of the drawer. He shook his hand and quickly muttered an incantation to get rid of the pain, smiling when the little purple sparks at the tips of his fingers did their work. He straightened up, adjusting his black T-shirt, and turned to the person who had tapped his shoulder. It was Ava, and she was holding up a little folded napkin.

"Gerard," she whispered obnoxiously, stretching out the name and grinning like a maniac as she waved the napkin around. "Someone left you their number!"

"What? Who?"

"I don't know, some boy who apparently saw you get punched, if the note's anything to go by. Did you get punched? Fucking hell, did I miss it? I would have beat that motherfucker to a pulp if I'd been there, I'm sorry."

"Hey, Aves, it's alright, 's not your fault. But what boy? What did he look like? Was he cute? Please, false _God_ let him be cute."

Ava giggled. "Yeah, he's cute alright. _And_ he had a lip ring. Bonus. Anyways I know you're leaving now so I won't hold you up. Call him!"

She shoved the folded napkin into Gerard's hand and skipped away. Gerard unfolded it and read through the messy handwriting.

_"Hey_

_I saw that asshole hit you and shit, I feel bad that you have to deal with that, so if you wanna talk then feel free to call me and rant about idiots like that._

_This is a dumb message, sorry - but I've seen you around a few times, I think I'm friends with your brother? Mikey?_

_Anyways, call me if you want :)_

_-xofrnk"_

And then there was a phone number scribbled at the bottom.

Gerard put the napkin in his pocket.


End file.
